Half by Eli Lang

Author:Eli Lang [Lang, Eli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2016-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

“Do you want to go to the beach?”

Kin raised his eyebrows, but his eyes didn’t leave the book he was reading. I opened the refrigerator door again. I didn’t want anything to eat. I just wanted to feel the cold on my face.

“No. Do you?”

I swung the door a little and looked at him over it. “No. I hate the beach.”

He put the book down this time, his expression questioning. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his legs stretched out in front of him, his feet crossed, his shoulders low against the back of the chair. I could see the webbing between his toes, the thin, silky fins that trailed down the backs of his ankles. There were green scales on the tops of his feet, and they shimmered in the sun coming through the window. He looked as good there, in my kitchen, as I’d thought he would the first time I’d seen him in my house.

“There are mer there,” I explained. He smiled, his mouth widening slowly. I realized what I’d said. “I didn’t mean like . . .”

He waved his hand at me, still grinning. “I get it.”

I shut the fridge door and slumped against it. “I thought you might want to go, though.”

He cocked his head at me. “Do you know where I was born?”

I shook my head.

“A lake.”

“But I thought . . .”

He shook his head. He was still smiling, like the whole thing was entirely amusing. “I’m not a fish, Luca. There’s no reason I have to live in salt water.” He moved his hand over the table, taking it and the kitchen in with the sweep. “Or in water at all.”

I bit my lip, thoughtful. “Isn’t it more comfortable, though?” I knew it had to be. He was a man, just like I was a man, but he was also something else. I might not have known much about yokai or ningyo, but I knew fey. I knew that elementals and spirits and fey that came from the sea or the forest or the desert or the snow were better in those places. That the nature was easier on them.

Kin’s fingers skimmed over the spine of the book. “Maybe I’m contrary,” he said, “but I’m more comfortable where I prefer to be. Not where my genes dictate I live. If I go to the sea, it’ll be because I’m craving sun and salt like any other beach lover. Not because I need it to survive. I don’t.”

He was watching me, his eyes staring into me. It was unnerving. He looked at me because he wanted to look. He wanted me to hear everything behind his words. He wanted me to know he wanted me, wanted me to know him. I’d never had anyone look at me like that before. It made me self-conscious. My hand moved by itself and rubbed the back of my neck, touched the short hair there, and I wondered why he didn’t mind the color. Why he didn’t mind the way I was too pale, the way my nose and my jaw were a little too sharp, slightly too long.

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